The present invention is directed to bone anchors for use in spinal surgery and particularly to threaded bone screws having angular movement in a single plane.
Bone screws are utilized in many types of spinal surgery in order to secure various implants to vertebrae along the spinal column for the purpose of stabilizing and/or adjusting spinal alignment. Although both closed-ended and open-ended bone screws are known, open-ended screws are particularly well suited for connections to rods and connector arms, because such rods or arms do not need to be passed through a closed bore, but rather can be laid or urged into an open channel within a receiver or head of such a screw. Generally, the screws must be inserted into the bone as an integral unit along with the head, or as a preassembled unit in the form of a shank and pivotal receiver, such as a polyaxial bone screw assembly.
Typical open-ended bone screws include a threaded shank with a pair of parallel projecting branches or arms which form a yoke with a U-shaped slot or channel to receive a rod. Hooks and other types of connectors, as are used in spinal fixation techniques, may also include similar open ends for receiving rods or portions of other fixation and stabilization structure.
A common approach for providing vertebral column support is to implant bone screws into certain bones which then in turn support a longitudinal structure such as a rod, or are supported by such a rod. Bone screws of this type typically have a fixed head or receiver relative to a shank thereof, or may be of a polyaxial screw nature. In the fixed bone screws, the rod receiver head cannot be moved relative to the shank and the rod must be favorably positioned in order for it to be placed within the receiver head. This is sometimes very difficult or impossible to do. Therefore, polyaxial bone screws that provide a ball-and-socket-like joint between a rod receiving bone screw head and associated shank are commonly preferred. However in certain applications, polyaxial screws provide a range of motion that is too great, such as, for example, in the treatment of certain spinal deformities, such as scoliosis, wherein surgical rotation or de-rotation manipulations may be required to correct an undesirable rotation of the vertebrae occurring in combination with a lateral spinal curvature.